Having had time to reflect on the so very similar thoughts and reactions of my four critiquing friends (yes, Kris’s comments were right in line with those of Andrew, Beth, and Trisha) I had two choices. I could put the manuscript in a drawer for few months or forever. Or, I could work on it while the critiques were fresh in my mind.
The second option won for a couple of reasons. First and strongest was the cover letter I had written to Lauren McKenna. It’s such a strong letter, and explains my story, my character and her motivations and dreams, so well. I wanted to send that letter and the pages!! I also wanted to make my first scene (and the rest of the pages) live up to the promise in that cover letter.
Some of you might remember that my rejection from Harlequin a few years ago included the phrase “your cover letter was so much stronger than the novel itself.” I didn’t that want to be true this time. The potential for the Deena I saw in my head to be there on the page was strong. So was my incentive for working until I captured her essential spirit.
I couldn’t quite settle down to write, yet, though. So I read through Linda Seger’s chapter on creating dynamic characters in Making a Good Writer Great. And I started scribbling notes to myself about changes I needed to make to the scene and to the manuscript as a whole. Then I re-read the first page of Faking It by Jennifer Crusie. And then I repeated my affirmations, trying hard to feel them as truth and not just say the words.
Then, I pulled up the first scene of Attracting Jack (yes, back to the original title, I’ll explain why later) and copied it to a new document. Then, armed with the information from the four critiques and what I learned from Seger and Crusie, I proceeded to cut everything that needed to go.
This potent combination of friendly advice, book smarts, and writerly instinct made the experience of cutting exhilarating. It was a peak writing experience, where time seems to stop and everything flows. I intuitively knew just what I had to cut to get the effect I wanted, which was a softening of my character, a way to show the vulnerable woman beneath her somewhat brash exterior.
I cut the whole scene in less than 30 minutes. And couldn’t believe how blind I had been to Deena’s flaws as a sympathetic character. Everyone saw it before I did; I didn’t want to look. I didn’t want to know. Except, suddenly, I did.
Then I read the cut version, again right on the computer, and added in new writing where it was needed. The time flew, the work went quickly. There was no hesitation with the new material. It all just flowed. Things clicked into place perfectly. I was on a high, the effects of which are still with me. It was the kind of writing day that makes all the doubts and dashed hopes seem like nothing. Seem like an easy trade-off.
One of the notes I scribbled had to do with going back to an earlier incarnation of Jack and Deena, one that seemed, in light of my new knowledge, to work better than this new one. Hence, the title that I loved even though it didn’t fit fits again. No wonder I could never find another title. Attracting Jack was the right title all along.
Joe wrote that great comment yesterday, and my writing pals have been e-mailing me with support as I moved through the past couple of difficult days. One of the things Andrew said was: “Progress may not be a staircase or a hill always sloping upward. It may be a spiral, where you pass close by what you thought you were done with…But you are not in quite the same place, there are subtle improvements, subtle differences.”
That e-mail from Andrew sat in cyberspace until I was done revising yesterday. So I had already made peace with going back to an earlier incarnation of Jack and Deena. But Andrew articulated so well WHY it was okay to go back. It isn’t the same place. There are improvements, differences.
And that’s a good thing. So thanks again to my critique friends, Trisha, Andrew, Beth & Kris — who pushed me when they could have taken the easy way instead.